THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
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THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA:
THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
“And then she saw that there was a light ahead of her; not a few inches away from
where the back of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off…she found
that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her
feet and snowflakes falling through the air…”
—C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
One of the most beloved fantasy adventures of the 20th century and a timeless tale of
sheer imagination at last comes to life with this stunningly realistic, painstakingly
authentic adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece. Years in the making, this is the first-
ever big-screen adaptation of the powerful classic that has sold more than 100 million
copies worldwide.
Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media present THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA:
THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, in which four young adventurers
playing hide-and-seek in the country home of an old professor stumble upon an
enchanted wardrobe that will take them places they never dreamed. Stepping through the
wardrobe door, they are whisked out of World War II London into the spectacular
parallel universe known as Narnia—a fairy-tale realm of magical proportions where
woodland animals talk and mythological creatures roam the hills. But Narnia has fallen
under the icy spell of a mad sorceress, cursed to suffer through a winter that never ends
by the White Witch Jadis. Now, aided by Narnia’s rightful leader, the wise and mystical
lion Aslan, the four Pevensie children will discover their own strength and lead Narnia
into a spectacular battle to be free of the Witch’s glacial enslavement forever. Touching
on eternal themes of good and evil, and of the power of family, courage and hope in the
darkest moments, THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE is a classic fable
for our times.
Years in the making and meticulously created by director Andrew Adamson to match
C.S. Lewis’ own vision of Narnia, THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
marks the live-action debut of New Zealander Adamson, who came to fore bringing
worldwide audiences the loveable green ogre at the heart of the Oscar®-winning “Shrek”
and “Shrek 2.” Adamson carries to the film a passion for Lewis’ story that began in his
own childhood—one that now meets up with extraordinary advances in motion picture
technology. The vast scope of the director’s vision of Narnia is brought to life through a
mixture of moving human performances and cutting-edge, photo-realistic techniques in
CGI, animation and prosthetic makeup that turn the wildly creative worlds and characters
Lewis forged into something heart-stoppingly close to reality.Says Adamson: “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe has taken millions of young
minds into realms of fantasy—so the enormous challenge as a filmmaker was to try to re-
create those worlds in a way that might live up to and even exceed people’s imaginations,
that could truly transport you to another time and place. You couldn’t have made this film
five years ago. You couldn’t have made a photo-realistic lion like Aslan five years ago,
or joined animal legs unto a human body realistically as we did with centaurs and
minotaurs five years ago. Now is the right time to be making this story.”
Adamson co-wrote the screenplay with Emmy® Award winner Ann Peacock (“A
Lesson Before Dying”) and Emmy® winners Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely
(“The Life and Death of Peter Sellers”). The film was produced by Academy Award®
winner Mark Johnson (“Rain Man,” “Bugsy,” “The Notebook”) and Philip Steuer (“The
Alamo,” “The Rookie”). Adamson and Perry Moore are the film’s executive producers,
with C.S. Lewis’ stepson, Douglas Gresham, serving as co-producer.
The film’s stellar cast features Tilda Swinton as Jadis, the powerful White Witch who
plunges Narnia into a frozen winter of war and discord. A quartet of rising young talents
take on the roles of the Pevensie siblings who journey through the wardrobe: newcomer
Georgie Henley is Lucy, the youngest and first to enter enchanted Narnia; Skandar
Keynes is Edmund, who falls under the seductive spell of the White Witch; teenaged
Anna Popplewell is Susan, the practical sister who remains skeptical about Narnia; and
William Moseley plays Peter, the eldest sibling, who becomes a true leader as their
adventures mount.
Co-starring in the film are Scottish actor James McAvoy as Mr. Tumnus, the
kindhearted faun who risks his own fate to ensure Lucy’s safety; Kiran Shah as
Ginarrbrik, the White Witch’s malevolent sleigh driver; Oscar® winner Jim Broadbent as
Prof. Kirke, whose eccentric country home houses the magical wardrobe; and veteran
Scottish performer James Cosmo as Father Christmas, whose arrival in Narnia signals the
possible downfall of the White Witch. To lend rich emotions to the magical computer-
generated creatures, Adamson recruited a host of acclaimed performers as vocal talents,
including Academy Award®-nominated Liam Neeson as Narnia’s noble ruler, Aslan the
Lion; Rupert Everett as The Fox, another ally of the children; veteran British performers
Ray Winstone and comedienne Dawn French as the kindly, bickering Mr. and Mrs.
Beaver.
In forging Lewis’ vast fantasy world, Adamson collaborated with a creative team that
includes Oscar®-nominated cinematographer Donald M. McAlpine, ASC, ACS, Oscar®-
nominated production designer Roger Ford, costume designer Isis Mussenden, editors
Sim Evan-Jones and Jim May and composer Harry Gregson-Williams. The story’s eye-
popping gallery of creatures was created under the supervision of visual effects
supervisor Dean Wright (“The Lord of the Rings”) working with award-winning visual
effects teams from three of the most highly esteemed facilities in the industry: Rhythm &
Hues, Sony Imageworks and ILM. The film’s creative team further includes four-time
Academy Award®-winning visualist Richard Taylor and the wizards from his WETA
Workshop. Taylor’s team joined with veteran movie makeup magicians Howard Berger
and Gregory Nicotero, whose award-winning K.N.B. EFX Group manufactured hundreds
of special makeup prosthetics to bring the myriad Narnian creatures to life.THROUGH THE WARDROBE DOOR:
AN INTRODUCTION TO NARNIA
“THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE is an adventure
the likes of which no one has ever been through, yet everyone who is, or ever was,
a child would love to be a part of.”
—Producer Mark Johnson
In 1950, the scholar, critic and writer C.S. Lewis published The Lion, The Witch and
The Wardrobe, the first of his seven-volume series, The Chronicles of Narnia, and
established a modern legend. A long-time fan of what he called “fairy stories,” Lewis had
set out to write a series of fantasy tales for children, but his creation turned out to be
much larger and grander than even he had foreseen. Adults and children alike fell in love
with his stirring, action-packed adventure that was set in the middle of World War II
bombing raids yet transported readers into an alternate and far more enchanted universe
of mythological creatures waging an epic battle between good and evil. Meanwhile,
critics were impressed with Lewis’ rare ability to forge a completely believable,
imaginary world—one with its own history, geography, culture and myths that
nevertheless reflected the struggles, hopes and moral dilemmas of our own world.
Profoundly affecting its fans, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe went on to
develop an enduring, worldwide readership and to become a staple of family libraries
across the planet. The entire Chronicles of Narnia series—which also includes Prince
Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy,
The Magician’s Nephew and The Last Battle—took the publishing world by storm,
eventually selling over 85,000,000 books in 29 different languages, making it second
only to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter tomes as the most popular book series ever. Indeed,
Rowling has cited C.S. Lewis’ Narnia as one of the inspirations to her own contemporary
stories of magic and adventure.
From the beginning, C.S. Lewis had wanted the experience of Narnia’s wonders to be
open to people of all backgrounds and ages. Explains the film’s co-producer, Lewis’
stepson Douglas Gresham, who grew up knowing Lewis and his writing intimately: “C.S.
Lewis’ mandate, his main idea about writing for children, included the theory that if a
book is worth reading when you’re five, it is still equally worth reading when you’re 50.
So The Chronicles of Narnia was intended to be read to children and by children and also
to be read by adults with great joy even to the last days of their lives.”
Along with a few other rare stories such as The Lord of the Rings (written by Lewis’
close friend and contemporary J.R.R. Tolkien), The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
became the equivalent of a foundational 20th-century fable. It was one of those timeless
adventures that equally fascinated grade-schoolers, grown-up readers and the most
sophisticated literary scholars intrigued by its metaphors and spiritual allegories. It soonsaw many incarnations in stage versions, as a British television series, as an animated
film and even in a BBC version created almost entirely with puppets.
But no one dared to attempt to bring Lewis’ land of Narnia to life with real actors and
sets, perhaps because it simply seemed too vast and overwhelming an undertaking. Only
recently, as technology has at last begun to catch up with Lewis’ far-reaching
imagination, was it even possible to imagine re-creating Narnia with the thrilling realism
director Andrew Adamson brings to the story.
C.S. Lewis’ stepson, Douglas Gresham—the creative and artistic director of Lewis’
estate and the C.S. Lewis Company—always believed a motion picture of Lewis’
masterwork would one day become reality. He stuck by the dream of bringing the story to
life in a way that would honor Lewis’ enduring creation for decades. “I’ve been working
on seeing a movie made of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, one way or another,
for probably 25 or 30 years,” Gresham notes. It was not until Gresham was approached
by Walden Media that the project truly began to take shape. “The Lion, The Witch and
The Wardrobe was my very favorite book as a kid, like it was for so many other people,”
notes executive producer Perry Moore, who was then a film executive at Walden Media.
“I always thought it was the perfect fit for Walden.”
From the start, everyone at Walden and subsequently at Disney was committed to
remaining steadfastly true to the spirit of C.S. Lewis’ story—without adding
manufactured twists to a story that has continued to inspire generation after generation.
“On the very first day that we sat down with the estate, we assured them that we were
going to do an absolutely faithful adaptation,” Cary Granat of Walden Media explains.
“Perry and I and, most importantly, Phil Anschutz [Walden Media’s founder], were
devoted to that vision. We weren’t looking to put modern-day spin on this piece, but to
honor it as a classic of all times.”
Sums up Gresham, for whom the journey to bringing his stepfather’s work to the
screen was profoundly personal: “The story of THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE
WARDROBE is so true, so honest, so straightforward, we felt certain that the less we
messed around with it, the better movie we would make. The first and most important
thing about getting this movie made properly was to get the right people involved.
Finding Andrew Adamson and bringing him on as director was key.”
ENTER ANDREW ADAMSON:
A VISIONARY
“Unlike Tolkien, who was very specific, Lewis left a lot to your imagination.
So we had the enormous challenge of not only creating Narnia, but of trying
to fulfill people’s expectations, to bring the film up to the level of their own
dreams and fantasies.”
—Director Andrew Adamson
To take on this first live-action cinematic telling of C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece, the
producers knew they would need an unusually creative—not to mention hugely
energetic—director; someone who could seamlessly marry the real world with a fantasy
realm of tremendous scope in a way that would be at once believable and emotionally
powerful. It would require someone with definite savvy in high-tech filmmaking,someone with a vivid fantasy-oriented imagination, yet also someone with the sensitivity
to evoke a tale that is, at heart, about children, family and the powerful notion of bringing
good back into the world. Most of all, it would require someone with a passion for Lewis’
highly distinctive style of fantasy storytelling—at once simple, magical and resonant.
At first, the search naturally focused on some of today’s best-known directors, but
then along came an utterly unexpected candidate: Andrew Adamson. One of
Hollywood’s preeminent animation directors and visual effects artists, Adamson’s
directorial debut, the animated global hit “Shrek,” had captivated audiences with its fairy-
tale charm, humanity and visual imagination. Despite the fact that he had never directed a
live-action film before, Adamson came to his first meeting bursting with a storm of
creative ideas that left the producers wowed by his personal passion for the project. He
seemed to have a deep inner connection with Lewis’ Narnia that the producers knew was
essential to imbuing the film with magic.
“He talked so passionately about the emotion and the themes of the piece,” Cary
Granat recalls, “and from those conversations we knew he was the guy. I’ve worked with
a lot of different filmmakers but I have never seen somebody who was so completely in
tune with a specific vision for a movie. After one meeting with Andrew, Perry and I were
both in agreement that this was the right person.”
Adamson’s excitement was inspired by his own memories of being an eight-year-old
boy who was whisked into Narnia and was never quite the same again. “I read all seven
books continuously over a period of a year or two, just read them over and over,” he
recalls. “I basically existed in this world of Narnia for a time. I remembered it as this
huge, vivid story with a massive battle between good and evil and a whole menagerie of
mythological creatures—and I wanted the chance to bring that world to the screen.”
Stirred by his childhood remembrances, Adamson started from the premise that
Narnia had to come off as 100-percent real—no matter what it would take cinematically
to achieve. “What is Narnia?” he asks. “That’s an interesting question and key to our
approach. I don’t see Narnia as just a figment of the children’s imaginations, a place that
they retreat to in their minds to escape World War II. Rather, I believe in Narnia as a true
alternate universe. There are many parallels to our world and there are many differences,
but the main point is that it is real.”
He continues: “So my approach to the movie was that it’s not quite like ‘The Wizard
of Oz’ or ‘Peter Pan,’ where you realize in the end that the story all happened in
someone’s imagination. When Lucy goes through that wardrobe and steps into a world, I
wanted that world to be completely believable, as if it was another country you might
visit. It had to be a whole Narnian reality unto itself.”
It was clear from the start that Adamson’s ideas for the film were vastly ambitious,
but Adamson was only further excited by the risk of tackling one of the most massive
projects of his, or anyone’s, career—one that would demand constant creativity in every
aspect of filmmaking. The director began on the page—by collaborating with
screenwriting partners Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (who went on to write
the Emmy®-winning “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers”) and polishing the original
screenplay by Emmy® winner Ann Peacock, putting the emphasis first and foremost on
storytelling.
“We approached it as a story that is very much about themes of betrayal, forgiveness
and loyalty. It’s about a family who feels disempowered by the terror of World War IIand then finds their power again in Narnia,” Adamson remarks. “It’s a story about four
kids who enter this land where they’re not only empowered, but where they’re ultimately
the only solution to the war in that land. And it’s only through unity as a family that they
can actually triumph. And that’s where we began.”
As they re-read the book, the screenwriters were surprised to find that the text of the
story itself was actually far more brief than they had remembered. “Most people recall it
as a denser, fuller book than it actually is. That’s a tribute to Lewis. He was a master at
tweaking kids’ imaginations enough where they could generate the rest of the story
themselves,” explains McFeely. “So we needed to flesh parts of it out, take the image we
had as kids and make that feel very real.”
Adamson adds: “I too remembered it as this epic story. So the first thing that I did
was to write everything that I remembered from reading it as a child—how I imagined
the battles, how the mythological creatures might fight with each other, who the
characters are, right down to the color schemes. I put down a stream-of-consciousness of
everything I thought the movie should be and extrapolated from there.”
The ideas, however, were all sparked directly by the writing itself, by Lewis’
endlessly imaginative frame. “All the themes, all the messages that were important to
C.S. Lewis are present in the movie, and it is, I hope, a faithful envisioning of what Lewis
was imagining when he wrote the book,” he comments. “It’s both an epic story of a battle
between good and evil, and an intimate family drama about a fractured family that has to
mend itself.”
Sums up producer Mark Johnson: “I think audiences will take away the most positive
messages of belief, strength and family. But, in the process, they will also go on an
original, exciting, unexpected ride. People ask, is it like ‘Lord of the Rings’ or ‘Harry
Potter’? The answer is no, it is its own world, and yet I think the sensation of seeing those
movies will be akin to the sensation one will feel in seeing this movie.”
INTRODUCING NARNIA’S EXPLORERS:
THE PEVENSIE FAMILY
At the heart of THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE are the many
spellbinding characters and creatures who came to life in C.S. Lewis’ beloved tale—from
the four young children who are transported from war-torn London into Narnia to the
incredible mythical menagerie of fauns, centaurs, giants, satyrs, dwarves, minotaurs,
minoboars and talking animals they meet on their life-changing journey.
The filmmakers’ first and most vital task was to start with the cornerstone of
humanity in the film—the four Pevensie children, who take the audience along with them
as they discover that a mysterious old wardrobe door is a portal into a land like no other.
As casting began, the filmmakers knew one thing: it was essential that the children be as
utterly, viscerally real as Narnia is fantastical.
Executive producer Perry Moore explains the approach taken in the search for the
children: “What makes this story so unique is that it’s about real people. When you think
of Narnia, you think of creatures, effects and spectacular dream-lands. But this is all
grounded in the reality of a true family. So while there are a lot of great child actors in
Hollywood, we made it very clear that we wanted real kids!”The filmmakers sought the services of veteran casting director Pippa Hall and thus
began a two-year hunt throughout England, during which Hall visited endless grade
schools, youth clubs and drama groups, interviewing over 2,000 children for the four
roles. “I took a video camera everywhere, sitting kids down to get them to talk about
themselves, what their favorite books were, what films they liked,” Hall recalls. “I would
then send Andrew loads of tapes and he’d watch them all and that’s how we cast the
Pevensies.”
Peter Pevensie
The eldest of the Pevensie kids is Peter, who leaves London a child yet becomes a
brave, grown-up leader fighting for the forces of good while in Narnia. To bring Peter to
life, Pippa Hall always had in mind 18-year-old William Moseley, who makes his feature
film debut. Hall first saw Moseley seven years ago and had never forgotten him.
“William’s is a fairy-tale story,” Hall elaborates. “I met William when he was 11, when I
was casting another film in Gloustershire, near where he lives. He was too old for that
part, but I still thought he was extraordinary, that he had something special. I thought of
William as Peter as soon as I read the script.”
Being about the same age as his character, Moseley immediately related to Peter’s
transformation in the course of his adventures in Narnia. “To put it simply, when Peter
steps through the wardrobe, he’s a boy. When Peter steps back out of the wardrobe, as the
story finishes, he’s a man,” the teenager says. “And, for me, I think I also became a man
throughout the making of this film. Like Peter, I’m the oldest in my family. Like Peter, I
strive a lot of the time for what’s right, what’s just. I think that’s the reason each of the
kids was cast for these parts—we’re so like the characters we play.”
“What really impressed me about William is that he grew into a young man as we
were making the film,” Adamson chimes in. “So, I basically saw William grow from this
15-year-old boy to this young man, this real warrior, just as Peter Pevensie does in
Narnia.”
Susan Pevensie
For the role of Susan, the beautiful, down-to-earth elder daughter, who tries to be the
responsible one during the children’s journey through Narnia, the filmmakers selected the
most seasoned cast member among the four children—London-born actress Anna
Popplewell, whose credits already include “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” “Mansfield Park”
and “The Little Vampire.” Popplewell was among the very first performers put on tape
by casting director Hall and quickly caught co-producer Douglas Gresham’s attention. “I
looked at these kids and immediately picked Anna for Susan,” he says. “She is not only
beautiful, she’s also extraordinarily talented, and she brought the role to life in a really
original way.”
“In many ways, Anna Popplewell, playing the part of Susan, had the hardest part of
the four kids,” producer Mark Johnson continues. “Her character has to be the reasonable,
sensible one but Anna presents her in a dynamic way that allows the audience to really
feel and comprehend the danger and apprehension that these four children experience in
Narnia. It’s a testament to how good Anna’s performance is that we expanded the part ofSusan. We gave her more scenes, more dialogue, because Anna made her character so
integral to the adventure of the movie.”
Popplewell, who recently turned 17, was very clear on what Susan goes through on an
emotional level in Narnia. “Each of the characters in THE LION, THE WITCH AND
THE WARDROBE has their own journey, and Susan’s no different,” she says. “Like
Peter, she feels the obligation of looking after her younger brother and sister, and it’s
something that has made her grow up too fast—being saddled with all that responsibility.
When she comes to Narnia, she thinks she’s too grown up to believe in it. But, through
this adventure, she becomes more open to the idea of being in this magical land. By the
end, it’s changed her for the better and she becomes unafraid of being a child. It’s a real
journey for her.”
Edmund Pevensie
Young Edmund is the most boisterous and mischievous of the Pevensie family and,
once in Narnia, finds himself dangerously tempted to join forces with the White Witch.
To portray the playful little rascal who learns to do the right thing, the filmmakers
struggled to find the right actor and didn’t discover Skandar Keynes until the very last
moment.
“Edmund is probably the most developed character in the book, and he was in some
ways the easiest to know what to look for, but the hardest to find,” Adamson comments.
“Then along came Skandar and he was really bright, funny, energetic, just full of beans,
and very wicked. He had a wonderful darkness in his eyes and was mischievous, sweet
and adorable all at the same time. Those were the character traits I really wanted Edmund
to have—to be able to pull off this darkness and still be lovable.”
Hailing from a London family related to Charles Darwin, and the son of author
Randall Keynes, Skandar impressed everyone on the set with his youthful smarts and
wisdom. Now 14, he had first read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as an eight-
year-old, which is also when he was first completely taken by Edmund. “I prefer my
character over all the others. I really think I have the best character,” the young actor says
with his typical bravado. “Of course, he’s a lot like me. He is the tyrant of the family,
which I am, and, yep, he succumbs to temptation very easily. Edmund is the black sheep
of the family, always teasing Lucy. But, in the end, Narnia makes him good. He goes
through the most radical change, starts to appreciate his family. The adventure really
changes him into a better person.”
Lucy Pevensie
Completing the quartet of children is ten-year-old Georgie Henley in the role of Lucy
Pevensie, the youngest Pevensie and also the most optimistic, open-hearted and brave of
them all, and who Adamson considers one of the story’s most important characters.
“Lucy is the pure heart of the book. She’s the one who first enters Narnia, the one who
has to deal with the disbelief of her siblings, and the one who has to have the spunk and
energy to still believe in herself,” he says. “Georgie Henley was just that. I knew from the
moment I saw her on tape that she was Lucy, she was just so believable in her very first
audition.”
Pippa Hall discovered Henley out of the blue on a visit to a school in Yorkshire.
Despite having no acting experience, Henley had something much more important—shewas an unusually intelligent, articulate and emotional child with a huge love of books.
Later, she became a constant surprise on the set. “She was so original in her approach to
the part that she made us see the dialogue in new ways, ways we hadn’t even imagined
before,” comments producer Mark Johnson.
Like the other children, Georgie saw an immediate link between herself and her
character. “Lucy is quite a lot like me in a way so it was very easy to slip into her
character,” she says. “Lucy’s the youngest of the four Pevensies, and nobody takes her
opinions seriously as the story begins. When she opens this wardrobe, she’s in a new
world and she feels as though her feelings mean something there.”
With the children cast, Adamson’s next task was to bring them together as a close-
knit family unit. “I wanted to create a strong family dynamic—but I couldn’t have hoped
for it to go as well as it did,” he notes. “I’m sure a part of what developed between them
was because they were all so far away from home that they kind of glommed onto each
other. Part of it was the mix of personalities that I picked. Yet it was almost magical how
they began to seem like a real family of siblings during production.”
To further help the children stay in the rhythm of the story, Adamson chose to shoot
THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE entirely in chronological order—so
that each new scene brought the young actors deeper into their characters and further into
their discovery of Narnia.
Rounding out the Pevensie family is the family matriarch, played by New Zealand
actress Judy McIntosh. It is she who must make the agonizing decision of sending her
four children out to the country during the dangers of the London blitzkrieg. For
McIntosh, a mother of three children herself, the small role was a very moving one,
integral to the story’s impact. “Mrs. Pevensie is there to highlight the plight of these
British evacuees during the War,” notes the actress. “I think she provides an opportunity
to kick-start the film with an emotional impact. When she says goodbye at the train
station, she gives the children the responsibility to go out and make those adult decisions
that she would normally have made for them.”
Before Adamson led his film family into the magical world of Narnia, he cast two
other key roles for the film’s opening in war-torn England—veteran New Zealand actress
Elizabeth Hawthorne as Mrs. MacReady, the stern caretaker of the professor’s country
home where the children are evacuated; and Best Supporting Actor Oscar® winner Jim
Broadbent (“Iris,” “Moulin Rouge!,” “Gangs of New York”) as Prof. Kirke, whose home
houses the magical wardrobe. With the human elements of the film in place, it was time
to move into the magical realms of Narnia.
INTO NARNIA:
CASTING AND CREATING NARNIA’S ICONIC CREATURES
Once they cross the threshold of the wardrobe, the Pevensie children find themselves
in a world filled with extraordinary creatures that were previously unimaginable to
them—and some of whom become their good friends and heroes. To forge these now-
iconic creatures from THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE required not
just one or two filmmaking techniques but a sophisticated and complex mix of human
acting performances, practical effects and digital wizardry.The first steps to their creation began with meticulous casting. While casting director
Pippa Hall concentrated on finding the four key child actors for the Pevensie kids, her
colleague Gail Stevens was secured by the production to audition talent for the “non-
human” roles that make up so much of the film.
Mr. Tumnus, the Faun
The very first “non-human” role cast was that of Mr. Tumnus—the shy, retiring, half-
man-half-goat who befriends Lucy but is forced to serve the evil plans of the White
Witch. The faun was C.S. Lewis’ original inspiration for the creation of Narnia—he once
said that it “all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy
wood”—so the filmmakers knew the part was vital to bringing Narnia to life. They found
the fabled qualities they were seeking in rising Scottish actor James McAvoy. “James
captured the sinister duality of Mr. Tumnus,” says Andrew Adamson. “He also has the
perfect face for the role. Most of all, he had this incredible connection with Georgie,
which was so important to the story.”
“I loved the books when I was a child, and to remember how they made me feel back
then was exciting,” McAvoy relates. “Mr. Tumnus was always one of my favorite
characters, so to play him was a big honor.” For McAvoy, the fascinating part of Tumnus
is that he becomes morally torn in his mission to kidnap Lucy for the White Witch. “He’s
forced by circumstance to do something against his will,” says McAvoy. “And therein
lies the duality that Andrew and I talked about. Tumnus is conflicted because in the
process of kidnapping Lucy, he forms a bond with her and they become close friends.
Ultimately, he’s forced to look at who he is, and what he wants and what he can live
with, which is a very unexpected thing for him.”
To morph from a 26-year-old modern young man into a century-plus-old
mythological creature, McAvoy had his own trials to bear—enduring over three hours
daily at the hands of one of Hollywood’s most seasoned makeup magicians: K.N.B. EFX
Group co-founder Howard Berger. “Once they cast James, we flew him over from
England for a life-casting,” Berger explains. “Andrew had a very specific vision in his
head of what Mr. Tumnus should look like. He wanted to re-create the Mr. Tumnus that
was in his head when he was a child and I think we were very successful.”
Berger continues: “For James, we sculpted a head piece that included little radio-
controlled ears that actually move, and horns attached to a skull cap. Then there’s a nose
piece, a forehead piece and hair pieces, including a wig, chops, beard, eyebrows, and
body hair. It took two of us over three hours to put all that on James every day. It was a
very intense process.”
In addition to enduring the grueling grind of his daily makeup, McAvoy spent several
weeks perfecting the voice and walk he used to bring the film’s first Narnian creature to
life. “In folklore, fauns were followers of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and
intoxication. They were merry, mischievous creatures and I wanted to reflect that,”
McAvoy explains. “There’s also a very English feel to the way Tumnus is written. That’s
something C.S. Lewis did on purpose—undeniably wrote him in a very certain type of
English voice. I took the tone of Mr. Tumnus’ voice from the goat in him, but the accent
came from the man half of him.”
From the waist down, Tumnus is all CGI, but in order to best emulate how a man-
goat might walk, McAvoy learned to walk on his toes for the cameras. “They couldn’t
have me walking around as a normal guy because my upper body would look strange onthese hind goat legs,” he remarks. “So, I had to walk about a million different ways, then
look back on the computer and see which one method worked!”
To complete the transformation from man to faun for the film, Adamson relied on the
talents of the visual effects wizards led by VFX supervisor Dean Wright. The process,
which Wright simply calls “leg replacement,” was first used in Robert Zemeckis’ 1994
Oscar® winner, “Forrest Gump” (for the character of Sgt. Dan, the maimed Vietnam vet
played by Gary Sinise). Wright, employing recent and more sophisticated computer
software, used “green screen pants” on McAvoy to create the illusion of a two-legged
goat, matching the movement of his computer graphics to that of McAvoy’s gait.
Even with all the preparation needed to bring Tumnus to life, director Adamson
insisted that, like a bride before her wedding, actress Georgie Henley should not get a
glimpse of what the faun character looked like until the last possible minute, so her
reactions of wonder and delight would be entirely authentic. “Andrew always wanted to
amaze me so he kept me from seeing the faun and the White Witch so that I would react
in a very convincing way,” says Henley, “and it worked!”
Jadis, the White Witch
The greatest villain in Narnia is Jadis, the seemingly invincible White Witch who has
cursed the one-time paradise to endure an eternal winter. To play the nefarious and chilly
role, the filmmakers embraced executive producer Perry Moore’s suggestion of veteran
Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, one of the mainstays of European cinema. “I’ve been a
fan of Tilda since I saw her in ‘Orlando,’” Adamson says of his leading lady, whose pale
complexion and ethereal beauty added dramatic dimension to the imposing creature she
plays in the film. “In addition to her physical stature, which suits the character perfectly,
she brings a strength, intensity and intelligence—all characteristics I wanted for the
White Witch. After all, she has to be as smart, as strong and as intense as Aslan the Lion
in her confrontations with him.”
He continues: “I think the guiding principle for both of us was avoiding cliché. When
C.S. Lewis wrote this book, the character of the White Witch was somewhat original but
that was 55 years ago. Now we have seen so many evil queens and witches, from Cruella
De Ville onwards. So we wanted to stay away from cartoonish, cackling figures. Instead,
what we wanted was a more human type of evil, something a little darker and more real,
and I knew Tilda had the sophistication to pull that off. It was a big challenge.
Ultimately, Tilda created a really convincing witch who evokes pure icy coldness.”
Unlike most of her cast-mates, Swinton came to the story completely fresh. “I’m one
of the few people who was brought up in the UK who didn’t read any of the Narnia books
as a child,” Swinton confesses. “So, I came to them entirely because of Andrew Adamson
who asked me to be in this film. I then read the stories to my six-year-old children. They
were the acid test. When they thought it was a good idea, I began to take the idea of the
film seriously. Of course, it’s a tall order to play the epitome of all evil. I just might have
children backing away from me for the rest of my life!”
It was also a tall order for an actress used to portraying the finer nuances of human
emotion to take on a character for whom emotion is a foreign concept. “Jadis is not
human, you have to remember. She has no feelings about anything,” Swinton notes.
“She’s not really comprehensible on any normal level. She has created Narnia as a
reflection of her own state of mind, freezing it into perpetual winter—no spring, noChristmas, no progress, no good, a pretty joyless place, until these children begin to turn
it around.”
Swinton became closely involved in creating the look of the White Witch, which is so
integral to her character. “We agreed that she should look modern and quite attractive in
her own way. I thought about my favorite fantasy beauties like the Good Witch in ‘The
Wizard of Oz,’ that played away from the cliché of a villainess. I didn’t want to have any
of the standards: black hair, red lips or black eyeliner.”
She continues: “The idea we worked on with the costume was that it would be like a
mood thermometer, that it would morph with her mood. She never changes dresses but
the dress itself changes shape and color according to how things are going for her. When
she’s at home in her ice castle, it puffs out like a ball gown, and when things are getting a
little bleaker, the dress gets tighter and darker. And when things get really dark for her in
the story, it goes completely black.”
In designing the gowns, replete with handmade lace, for Swinton’s character, costume
designer Isis Mussenden envisioned “seven different gown changes for Tilda to
physically represent her diminishing powers. As spring takes hold of Narnia, it melts
away the frost and drains away the White Witch’s powerful hold on the frozen
landscape.”
Ultimately, Swinton fell just as in love with Narnia as those who had first
encountered it in childhood. She says: “THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE
WARDROBE began to remind me of great family films that I grew up with, like ‘The
Railway Children’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ It’s a classic story in that it has an old-
fashioned quality but at the same time it feels entirely modern.”
Aslan, the Lion
The White Witch’s greatest rival in Narnia is Aslan, the wise and majestic lion who
sang Narnia into existence and once served as high king of the land. To create this
towering character, so beloved as a hero by so many, Adamson turned both to CGI
wizardry and to acclaimed Academy Award®-nominated actor Liam Neeson, who creates
Aslan’s charismatic personality through his voice. “Aslan is all-powerful and all-
knowing, yet still has a very human vulnerability,” observes Andrew Adamson. “I think
C.S. Lewis used a lion for Aslan because he represents something that’s both fearsome
and awesome. He’s the epitome of strength and power, but he’s not just a dream lion.
He’s flesh and blood and that was very important to our conception.”
For the filmmakers the key to creating Aslan was to use the latest digital magic to
make him look like he isn’t digital at all—but a true beast of the forest, albeit with
disarmingly human and intelligent eyes, right down to his thunderous roar. “We hope
Aslan will be the most photo-realistic computer-generated animal yet seen in a motion
picture,” says producer Mark Johnson. “We want audiences to wonder just how we were
able to get this dangerous beast to interact so beautifully with children actors.”
It took VFX supervisor Wright some 700 individual VFX shots and almost two years
to breathe life into the Aslan who graces THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE
WARDROBE. He had his work cut out for him. “There’s a very fine line when taking an
animal character and having it talk and relate to humans,” Wright admits, “and we
definitely didn’t want to cross the line of becoming cartoonish. The photo-realism and themovement had to have almost a hyper-reality to them in that Aslan acts just like a lion yet
can do more than you expect a lion to do, and that was our challenge.”
Vital to Wright’s work was allowing Aslan to speak in a natural, organic manner
which meant mapping the movement of his speech unto the whole musculature of the
animal and not just his mouth—creating a realism that takes the animation that brought
“Babe” and other talking animals of recent cinema to new heights. Comments Adamson,
“It was essential to me that the animation in this film not be caricatured. I wanted the
moment where Lucy nuzzles up to Aslan to have the power of ‘Oh my gosh, that little
girl is snuggling up to a real lion.’ It had to have the kind of weight and believability that
you don’t usually see in animation. We’re very lucky that technology has just reached the
point where this was a possibility.”
Meanwhile, to match a voice to the mighty beast, Adamson turned to leading screen-
star Liam Neeson because, he says, “Liam has such beautiful depth and resonance to his
voice. He can exude such great warmth and compassion while also possessing a ferocious
strength. He completely believes in the character and it comes across in a performance
that adds the final touch in bringing him to life.”
In addition to the primary CGI work used to forge Aslan in the computer, Adamson
also relied on K.N.B.’s Howard Berger to provide three life-sized animatronic lions for a
few key scenes. “One version is a full-size Aslan that was utilized for stand-in work, so
Dean’s digital crew had a special reference point when filming on the set,” explains
Berger. “Next, we built a version of Aslan for the Stone Table, which was a full-scale,
eight-foot lion puppet, just a magnificent piece of work, with a radio-controlled head. It
breathed and did all this amazing stuff. Finally, we created a riding version that Susan
and Lucy rode against green screen. It was this enormous, hulking thing that weighed a
good 500 pounds, if not more.”
While constructing these colossal puppets, Berger, too, aimed for palpable realism.
His final test was to see if the young actors reacted to his Aslan puppets with awe. “I
really wanted the actresses not to think it was a puppet. I didn’t want them to think for a
moment it was just a prop or a makeup effect, but to react to it as if it was right out of the
zoo,” Berger notes. “When we saw that happening, it was wonderful. That was always
Andrew’s vision of Narnia—a place just as real as London, but a lot more magical.”
JOURNEY TO NARNIA:
THE FILM’S DESIGN
The world of Narnia has, up until now, existed only in the imaginations of millions of
readers. With his characters cast, director Adamson was faced with the massive, daunting
task of bringing Narnia’s geographic world—from its wooded coves, magical lampposts
and beaver lodges to the iced-over castle at Cair Paravel—to palpable life so that one
could believe with all their senses that they truly exist.
Before hammer was ever put to nail, before paint was put to brush, before saw was
put to wood, Adamson pre-visualized more than half of THE LION, THE WITCH AND
THE WARDROBE inside a computer. With this tremendous advantage, and armed with
his intimate knowledge of Narnian history and lore, next began the physical work of
creating Narnia’s famous locales as life-sized sets. Adamson sought out two unique
talents to bring the physical reality of Narnia alive. He says: “I couldn’t have done itwithout production designer Roger Ford, who created magnificent sets that exceeded
everyone’s expectations, and D.P. Don McAlpine, who did a wonderful job lighting the
world of Narnia.”
In early conversations with production designer Ford, Adamson explained his concept
for the look of the film, which he hoped would match what he had seen in his mind’s eye
as a child—an incredibly real and unsparing vision of a bleak WWII London turning into
a doomed, wintry, fantastical Narnia and then, ultimately, into an incredible burst of lush,
magic-filled spring full of renewed life and hope. Ford knew that trying to capture the
sheer inventiveness and wonderment of a child’s imagination would be a huge challenge.
“I think the most difficult thing about creating a film that is also for children is that you
have got to surprise them,” he says. “You’ve actually got to go further than their
imagination goes, which is not an easy thing. At the same time, it’s a dream project for a
designer.”
THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE marked the second collaboration
between Ford and Don McAlpine, who shot Ford’s sets on P.J. Hogan’s 2003 fantasy
film, “Peter Pan.” But this film was like nothing they had done before. McAlpine’s
creativity was pushed to new edges as he tried to shoot a world covered in a glacial sheen
of ice. “It was a series of experiments, and something totally new to me,” the director of
photography remarks. “Ultimately, I think it’s something totally original that we tried. Ice
has always been a problem in films. They’ve tried it in many movies, ‘Vertical Limit’
being one, but I think we took it one step closer to reality and created something that will
be very visually exciting.”
The Oscar®-nominated Ford (“Babe”), a veteran designer whose career dates back to
the cult favorite “Dr. Who,” designed and constructed almost three dozen set pieces for
the production—many of them influenced by the original pen-and-ink drawings created
for C.S. Lewis’ 1950 novel by illustrator Pauline Baynes. Collaborating closely with one
of the industry’s finest art directors, Australian native Ian Gracie (“Moulin Rouge,” “Star
Wars: Episode III”), Ford recruited a team of 30 for his art department and a construction
crew surpassing 300 carpenters, painters and other craftsmen, the largest the designer had
ever assembled in his 40-year career.
At New Zealand’s decommissioned Hobsonville Airbase, the designers transformed
old airplane and helicopter hangars into sound stages that harbored such spectacular sets
as the Stone Table, where Aslan appears to have been defeated; the White Witch’s
magnificent courtyard of creatures turned to stone; the bustling London train station,
patterned after famous Paddington station, where the four Pevensie children are
evacuated during the London blitzkrieg; and Cair Paravel, the great Narnian castle.
The design team also utilized Kelly Park, an old equestrian center north of Auckland,
where Lucy and the entire film company took their first footsteps into the snowy Narnian
landscape on a set the size of a rugby field. This massive set, which would eventually be
transformed into nine different areas of Narnia, challenged Oscar®-nominated
cinematographer Don McAlpine to come up with an innovative grid of some 250 space
lights, hanging from the building’s rafters, to illuminate the magical, imaginary land.
Conifer Grove, a woodsy campground near Manukau Harbor, was chosen by the
filmmakers for the White Witch’s camp, where K.N.B.’s Berger and his troops
transformed Kiwi extras into minotaurs, minoboars, cyclops and other creatures.
Henderson Studios, home of the 1TV series “Hercules” and “Xena,” housed suchspectacular builds as the interior of Mr. Tumnus’ house; the beaver lodge; the White
Witch’s dungeon; an exterior set called “the frozen lake,” where Ford’s crew created a
gimbal system of mini-icebergs which swayed and flowed under the weight of Lucy,
Peter and Susan while fleeing the clutches of Maugrim’s wolf pack; the White Witch’s
Great Hall; and the wardrobe room, a dusty attic which houses the essential set piece of
the book’s title. Ford elaborates on some of his favorite designs:
The Lamppost
The lamppost that lies just on the other side of the wardrobe becomes the children’s
introduction to Narnia. It was also one of Ford’s most beloved sets for its fairy-tale
nature. “It was just magical,” the designer comments. “You come out of this wardrobe,
it’s snowing, it’s cold, and you don’t know where you are. Then, in the middle of the
forest, there’s this lamppost growing with great roots around the bottom of it. Not woody
roots, but cast iron roots. It’s a very evocative introduction to Narnia.”
“We actually brought the lamppost in from the U.K.,” Ford continues. “It’s a casting
of an original London lamppost. We cast several versions of it. We wanted it to be very
authentic so we also got the proper gas fitting which appears in the film. To me, it’s one
of the most iconic images in the book. You have the faun with an umbrella in the snow,
which was C.S. Lewis’ first inspirational image for writing the book. And then you have
the lamppost, which occurs very early in the story. As the children pass the lamppost, it’s
kind of an eternal light that leads them into Narnia. What we created was exactly how I
imagined the lamppost in Narnia to be.”
The Wardrobe
No ordinary piece of furniture, the carved wooden wardrobe the Pevensie children
stumble upon in the professor’s house is actually an ancient doorway into a parallel
universe. Another of the story’s most iconic images, the creation of the wardrobe was
vital to the film’s design. “The wardrobe was a major project,” Ford says. “It’s probably
the most important prop in the film. I mean, how many expectations of children are
resting on what the wardrobe will look like? We knew it was a great responsibility.”
He continues: “First, we found a wardrobe that C.S. Lewis actually owned in a
museum in the States. It’s a big, oblong, square wardrobe with a carving on it, and quite
dark—a Jacobean-style wardrobe. So that gave us the idea that our wardrobe shouldn’t be
too Baroque or decorative. It should have a simplicity about it. Next, Andrew very
cleverly came to the conclusion that this wardrobe should have one large door. It’s a
portal after all, to another world. So ours has one entrance that the children find
irresistible.”
Ford also took inspiration from the sixth book in The Chronicles of Narnia, The
Magician’s Nephew, which reveals that the wardrobe was originally made of apple wood,
and attempted to replicate that dark, rich wood. “Knowing that C.S. Lewis’ wardrobe was
heavily carved, Andrew and I also wondered what authentic carvings to put on it,” Ford
goes on. “So we came up with the idea of telling the story of The Magician’s Nephew in
the carvings. We used nine images from the book that are carved into the panels of the
wardrobe, plus the lion’s heads at the top. At the bottom, we’ve got the White Witch and
her sister. So the whole of the wardrobe tells quite a nice story.”The Snowy Forests of Narnia
To further transform soundstages into the winter-cursed Narnian forest, Ford secured
the talents of two Kiwi movie veterans—Russell Hoffman, the head greensman who led a
team of arborists and landscapers to create the forest of Narnia, and “snowman” Peter
Cleveland, whose crew used 11 different materials to create the copious make-believe
snow that adorns so many of the Narnian sets.
Hoffman’s indoor landscapers planted over 225 trees on the production’s soundstages
to match the forests of Eastern Europe. “I’m actually a staunch environmentalist,”
Hoffman notes, “so the trees that we chose were all part of experimental crops that have
been used for commercial purposes. They’re not part of the New Zealand ecology or
anything like that.” While Hoffman’s lumberjacks trucked the trees far and wide from
around the country’s north island, Cleveland reached out to the U.K. and the U.S. for two
different types of artificial snow used to create Narnia’s winter wonderland.
“We used air foam on the trees, which is the same material used in the construction
industry to insulate houses,” Cleveland explains. “Another type of product we used is a
paper snow which comes from chopped-up diapers. These were from Welsh diapers, and
the foam product on the trees came from Tennessee. The bonus of that paper product was
that we could eliminate footprints easily and return the set back to a smooth dressing for
each new take.”
The Beaver Lodge
Another of Ford’s remarkable designs is the “beaver lodge,” where Mr. and Mrs.
Beaver give the Pevensie children refuge while reciting the history of Narnia. Director
Adamson envisioned the beavers as rustic craftsmen, creating their home, furniture and
tools from their surroundings, and trading with the local dwarves for other commodities.
He wanted a very authentic, “beaverized” look, which required the designers to
unexpectedly immerse themselves in beaver biology…and architecture.
Says Jules Cook, one of Ford’s key art directors who supervised the lodge set: “Much
of the inspiration for the beavers’ environment, both in the interior, shot on a soundstage
at the Henderson Studios, and the exterior, filmed as part of a vast snowscape at Kelly
Park, was taken from watching beavers in their natural habitat in the 1988 IMAX® film
‘Beavers.’ In a climactic scene in that film, a bear tears apart a beaver dam, and close
examination of the destruction provided a strong basis for the scene in our film where a
pack of the White Witch’s wolves tears through the lodge looking for the Pevensies.”
“Beaver dams generally let part of their river’s water through the structure,” Cook
further explains, “and particular attention had to be paid to how a flow of water would
freeze around the habitat.” Chainsaws and Arbortec drill attachments were used to create
a unique “chewing” effect on the logs, and as beavers tend to strip the bark off branches,
this was done as well. Set builder Pete MacKinnon estimates that he used over 4,500
sticks, all “between finger thickness and leg thickness,” to create the set. The lodge’s
furniture is appropriately makeshift, with the Beavers’ living area cluttered with
miniature tools, fishing rods and collectibles, while Mrs. Beaver’s “homey” touch is
responsible for the spun textiles and homemade preserves. In a subtle flourish,
Anglophiles may note Mr. Beaver’s collection of Toby jugs, a series of beer mugs dating
back to the 18th century, usually depicting various human characters. Of course, thecareful eye may note an important difference—Mr. Beaver’s Toby jugs are beavers as
well!
The White Witch’s World
Also forged at Henderson Studios were some of the film’s most imaginative and
striking sets—those that make up the White Witch’s world, including Great Ice Hall, the
Witch’s dungeon, and the Witch’s courtyard, each constructed to reflect a hauntingly
glassy realm of snow and ice. The production used more than 7,000 gallons of resin and
half a kilometer of fiberglass in the creation of this frozen-over world.
In the White Witch’s courtyard stand dozens of Narnian creatures—including
griffins, bears, centaurs, panthers, giants and fauns—each frozen into stone statues by the
Witch. To create this eerie, accursed sculpture garden, Ford and Gracie had their teams
hand-sculpt some 70 full-scale, life-size statues from styro-foam molds designed by a
team of ten global artists (from places including Beijing, South Africa, Australia and
New Zealand) over a five-month period under the supervision of veteran Aussie movie
craftsman John Searle (“Moulin Rouge,” “Babe”).
“We started by using a technique we hadn’t tried before, using a computer to carve
out all the profiles of these huge carvings,” Searle explains. “We then had each statue’s
profile cut out of foam, generally 25 or 50 millimeter sheets of polystyrene glued
together. From there, a sculptor carved them down to form, using sharp knives, sandpaper
and abrasives. We then had to cut the statue open and fill it with steel armature, so it
could be screwed into the ground. But that was just the first phase! Then we had to coat
each one to give it a finish that made it look real. For instance, the bear has a different
texture from a lion. With the mythological creatures, a lot of them have armor, which was
made by WETA, so we applied all those pieces as well. Finally, we gave it a seal coat of
a urethane, then at last, it was on to the painters. It was quite a process.”
The Queen’s Castle
Finally, the filmmakers turned to the creation of the queen’s castle, another major
challenge to their creativity. “The queen’s castle in the book is not described as being
made of ice,” Ford notes. “We made a very rash decision early on that we would make
our castle out of ice. That all seemed very exciting at the time but then, of course, came
the problem for me of how to build a castle out of ice.”
“We built these mammoth sets out of half-inch-thick fiberglass,” Ford describes.
“Every piece had to be carved out of polystyrene. Then the polystyrene had to be covered
in a layer of impermeable plastic, almost like Glad Wrap, so that the fiberglass didn’t
stick to it. Each piece was then fiberglassed with a gun, using fiberglass with color mixed
in it, so we get this very slight blue look to it. Finally, we did a lot of research with Don
McAlpine on the lighting. He did a fantastic job making this stuff look exactly like ice.”
Though much of THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE was spun out
of whole cloth on soundstages, a number of authentic locations were also utilized. The
production spanned the globe, shooting in Poland, the Czech Republic, England and, of
course, New Zealand—as well as the one place that has come to truly represent fairy-tale
worlds: Andrew Adamson’s native New Zealand. After scouring the world for forests as
lush and hills as green, Adamson ultimately chose New Zealand’s South Island to shoot
the climactic battle for Narnia as Aslan’s army, now led by Peter, takes on the Witch’sYou can also read
